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In one of their first moves of the new Congress, House Republicans have voted to gut their own independent ethics watchdog — a huge blow to cheerleaders of congressional oversight and one that dismantles major reforms adopted after the Jack Abramoff scandal.
Monday's effort was led, in part, by lawmakers who have come under investigation in recent years.
Despite a warning from Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), House Republicans adopted a proposal by Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) to put the Office of Congressional Ethics under the jurisdiction of the House Ethics Committee.
The office currently has free rein, enabling investigators to pursue allegations and then recommend further action to the House Ethics Committee as they see fit.
Now, the office would be under the thumb of lawmakers themselves. The proposal also appears to limit the scope of the office's work by barring them from considering anonymous tips against lawmakers. And it would stop the office from disclosing the findings of some of their investigations, as they currently do after the recommendations go to House Ethics.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/house-republicans-gut-their-own-oversight-233111
The Office of Congressional Ethics was established in 2008 under House Democrats, in response to the era of lobbying scandals made notable by Jack Abramoff, the former lobbyist who went to prison on corruption charges.
It is the first independent body to have an oversight role in House ethics. There is no Senate counterpart. The OCE independently reviews allegations of misconduct against House members and staff, and if deemed appropriate refers them to the House Ethics Committee for review. The OCE cannot independently punish lawmakers for any ethics violations.
Update: House Republicans pull plan to gut independent ethics panel after Trump tweets
(Score: 5, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday January 03 2017, @05:18PM
The website of the office claims to be non-partisan but the wikipedia page lists the current board of directors of which exactly 1 is a republican. I'm sure you're completely shocked that the only party the office ever went after were republicans and the only supporters of the office after it got spanked was democrats. So its about as non-partisan and open minded as the McCarthy hearings were.
Wow, the title of your post is intended as irony, I assume? Let's just set aside that McCarthy quip -- I'm not sure you really want to compare the actions here to the insane rantings of the leader of the communist purges, do you?
Anyhow, let's dig into those board members [house.gov], shall we? There are 7 listed.
(1) Acting Chair - Judy Biggert [wikipedia.org] - former Republican House rep from Illinois. In her bio it notes: "Ms. Biggert was voted by her House colleagues in 2010 as one of the 'Top ten most bipartisan members of the U.S. House.'"
(2) Co-Chair - David Skaggs [wikipedia.org] - former Democratic House rep from Colorado. In his bio it notes: "He was the founding co-chairman with Congressman Ray LaHood (R-Illinois) of the House Bipartisan Retreat, the first such meeting in history, held in March, 1997, at Hershey, Pennsylvania. He was also co-founder with Representative Jim Leach (R-Iowa) of the Constitutional Forum, a series of seminars with distinguished guest lecturers who led Member discussions of constitutional issues."
(3) Belinda Pinckney - retired Brigadier General and CEO of BHP consulting. I can't find any source for Wikipedia's contention that she's a Democrat, but given her association with diversity efforts [bhpconsultingllc.org], it seems reasonable to say she slants that way.
(4) Jay Eagen - former Chief Administrative Officer of the House. Wikipedia claims independent, and (according to OCE bio) "A bipartisan House search committee unanimously selected Mr. Eagen." On the other hand, his bio also states that he had previously served as Chief of Staff to both Bill Goodling of PA and Steve Gunderson of WI, both House Republicans, so I think we should probably give him a "slant R."
(5) Karan English [wikipedia.org] - a former Democratic House rep from Arizona. But, notably, she was endorsed for her seat AGAINST the Republican candidate by no other than BARRY GOLDWATER. Huh. Hardly a bio of a typical far left liberal.
(6) Allison Hayward - again, Wikipedia SAYS she's a Democrat, but I can't find any evidence of that. Instead, we find out she was VP of Policy at the Center for Competitive Politics [wikipedia.org], which is basically an organization dedicated to removing barriers to spending in elections. While politicians on both sides can benefit from such deregulation, I think we can all agree that the folks more strongly arguing in favor of stuff like Citizens United are Republicans. Hayward was also Chief of Staff to Bradley Smith [wikipedia.org], former Commissioner of the FEC, who came to the attention of Republicans for his pro-business and "free money" stance on contributions to political campaigns (and was recommended to Bill Clinton as the Republican choice for his FEC appointment by Trent Lott and Mitch McConnell). So, maybe she's a registered Dem... I don't know. But one whose interests seem to also be tied up with more typical Republican issues.
(7) Michael Barnes [wikipedia.org] - former Democratic congressman from Maryland.
So what do we really have here? On the Dem side: three former Democratic house reps, one of which is notable for founding bi-partisan groups in Congress and another of which was endorsed by Barry Goldwater. One former Rep house rep, who is chair (and also notable for bipartisan action). And three other people without clear partisan affiliation, one of which is claimed to be "independent" but served as chief of staff to two different Republican reps, and another of which was previously entrenched in lobbying to overturn campaign finance regulations. Only one of those three "unknowns" seems to have clear Democratic leanings (based on her corporate bio).
Is this a good mix? Heck if I know. But I'd say there's pretty good evidence that at least three of the board members lean Republican in terms of their background, and another was a Democrat endorsed by Goldwater. So I'd hardly say it's the "one lone Republican rep on the board" that you claim.
In a display of comedy the web page of the office itself claims it behaves in a perfectly non-partisan manner and also almost every single member just randomly happens to be one party and they just randomly happen to only go after another party and I have a nice bridge for sale at a nice price and would you be interested in purchasing it from me?
Wow -- are you seriously going to say that here when anybody can check it in the published LIST of every Congress rep the OCE has recommended to the ethics committee [house.gov]?
I just spent about 10 minutes going through and checking all the ethics reports for the past four years (2013-2016), which includes concerns about 14 Republican Congress reps, 13 Democratic Congress reps, and 4 investigations into other people (1 Republican staffer and 3 Democratic staffers).
Granted, I didn't dig through all the reports going back to 2009, because I have better things to do with my time, but you're welcome to do so if you wish. But the kind of bias you claim is VERIFIABLY FALSE.
However reading the FAQ on the office website itself the group never had any authority or power or advisory ability beyond being what boils down to first level customer support to open and process tickets that are exclusively handed by the "real" House Ethics Committee... You know, the one they're now officially reporting under as opposed to previously unofficially reporting under, or before the "symbolic fake action" of creating the separate but unequal dept to begin with in '08. Its like making customer support accountable to engineering officially rather than just tossing over tickets, say. Its not really going to attack or change anything because its as powerless of a figurehead as it was always, just under slightly more direct adult control now.
Maybe it's a useless organization as you say. I don't really know how to gauge effectiveness. BUT one might argue that even a group with no formal power can still draw attention to ethics violations. The House still officially would have to RESPOND to any allegations the OCE sent them. Arguing that the OCE is useless is like arguing that a petition circulated by voters to look into an issue is useless. It may have no power to expel a member from Congress or whatever, but I think most reasonable people would argue that having SOME outside party's opinions heard and FORCING Congress to at least respond to ethics allegations might have SOME value.
I'm not going to even bother responding to the rest of your post. Once you have some actual evidence to back up any of your claims, maybe try again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @08:53PM
why are all of these older users suddenly coming out as cranks in this election cycle? Many of these people (not all of them) were pretty normal sounding prior to the election.
Spouting pure BS under the assumption that people here would not fact check anything?
It's like Ethanol Fueled is possessing half the conservatives that post here...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @08:59PM
You just didn't realize their idiocy because they weren't talking about politically topical issues. Ethan talks about politics, mostly white supermacy, more than anything else so everybody knows he's an idiot.
People can be pretty smart about one topic, especially one they have professional involvement in, and utter idiots in other areas of life.
I would argue that the more time someone has spent specializing, the less likely they are to have a clue about anything outside of their specialty.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday January 04 2017, @05:31AM
The people you're referring to were NEVER normal, and I've been pointing this out from the very beginning...usually to be ignored or attacked back for it. From this end, their crazy stands out like a gigantic neon sign in the darkness. It's nice to be vindicated, though it's something I wish I were wrong about :(
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...